''Relax'' is the only studio album by American hip hop trio

Das Racist Das Racist was an American alternative hip hop group based in Brooklyn, composed of MCs Heems and Kool A.D. and hype man Ashok Kondabolu (a.k.a. Dapwell or Dap). Known for their use of humor, academic references, foreign allusions, and unconv ...

. It was released by

Greedhead Music Greedhead Music is an independent record label founded by Himanshu Suri of Das Racist that has been defunct since 2015. Initially, Suri founded Greedhead Music as a management and recording company in 2008 to manage Das Racist. Greedhead's first ...

on September 13, 2011. It peaked at number 111 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart.

Production

The album is produced by

Diplo Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is a co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer; a member of the supergroup LSD (group), ...

El-P Jaime Stuart Meline (born March 2, 1975), better known by the stage name El-P (shortened from his previous stage name El Producto), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Starting his career as a member of Company Flow, he has ...

Rostam Batmanglij Rostam Batmanglij (, ; born November 28, 1983), known mononymously as Rostam, is an American musician, producer and songwriter. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whose first three albums he produced. He has been described by ...

, and Anand Wilder, among others. It includes guest appearances from El-P,

Danny Brown Daniel Dewan Sewell (born March 16, 1981), better known as Danny Brown, is an American rapper, singer and songwriter from Detroit, Michigan. He was described by MTV in 2011 as "one of rap's most unique figures in recent memory". After amassing ...

, and Despot.

Release

On August 2, 2011, Das Racist released "Michael Jackson", the lead single from the album. The music video for the song was premiered on September 9, 2011. Directed by Weird Days, the video references

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...

's "

Black or White "Black or White" is a song by American singer Michael Jackson, released by Epic Records on November 11, 1991, as the first single from Jackson's eighth studio album, '' Dangerous'' (1991). Jackson wrote, composed, and produced the track with rec ...

" video, featuring the morphing faces of

, Despot, Lakutis,

Hari Kondabolu Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu (born October 21, 1982)Beem, p. 38 is an American stand-up comedian and writer. His comedy covers subjects such as race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. He was a writer for '' Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell'' and ...

, Mike Finito, Anand Wilder,

, and Ben Schecter, among others. The album was released by

on September 13, 2011. The band played

Late Night with Conan O'Brien ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the second installment of the ''Late Night (franchise), Late Night'' franchise originally established by David Letterman. Hosted by Conan O'Brie ...

on September 28, 2011. Music videos were also created for "Brand New Dance" and "Girl".

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Tuyet Nguyen of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...

'' gave the album a "B+" grade, praising Das Racist's "acutely modern sense of humor." Jesse Cataldo of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

'' gave the album 4 stars out of 5, saying, "''Relax'' finds Das Racist operating as both consumers and creators of pop culture, spawning an endless pomo cycle of criticism and observation." Paul de Revere of ''

Consequence of Sound ''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. History ''Consequence of Sound'' was founded in Septem ...

'' called it "Das Racist's definitive album to date."

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes. * Kool A.D. – production (1, 2), artwork *

Heems Himanshu Kumar Suri (born July 6, 1985), better known by his stage name Heems, is an American rapper. Suri came to prominence as a member of the alternative hip hop group Das Racist, with whom he released two mixtapes and one album. Suri has ...

– production (1, 2), executive production *

Patrick Wimberly Jonathan Patrick Wimberly (born May 29, 1983) is an American record producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and mixing engineer best known as being one-half of the synth-pop duo Chairlift. The band parted ways in 2017 so Wimberly a ...

– production (1, 2, 3, 8, 11), executive production, recording, mixing * Travis Rosenberg – pedal steel guitar (2, 8) * Anand Wilder – vocals (4), production (4) *

Blood Diamonds Blood diamonds (also called conflict diamonds, brown diamonds, hot diamonds, or red diamonds) are diamonds Diamond mining, mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, an invading army's war efforts, terrorism, or a warlord's activity ...

– production (5) *

– vocals (6), production (6) *

– production (7) * Lakutis – handclap (8) *

– vocals (9) * Despot – vocals (9) * Dash Speaks – production (9) * Bikram Singh – vocals (10) * J-La – production (10, 12) *

– production (13) * Francis Farewell Starlite – production (14) * Josh Ascalon – engineering (8, 11) * Daniel Lynas – engineering (9) *

Chris Gehringer Chris Gehringer (born May 27, 1962) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound in New Jersey. Gehringer is known for having mastered recordings by popular artists such as AJR, Dua Lipa, Drake, Ed Sheeran, Gwen Stefani, Harry Styles, ...

– mastering * Katy Porter – photography

Charts

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 2011 albums Das Racist albums Albums produced by Diplo Albums produced by El-P Albums produced by Patrick Wimberly Albums produced by Rostam Batmanglij Greedhead Music albums